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Friday, 28 December 2012

I would have your joy. It is the hardest to sell. The hardest to acquire. It is a beautiful thing, joy. Something I have worked hard here in Los Angeles to make marketable, to make translatable into media my buyers can perceive and understand.

People of Earth, listen. The time we know is only now. It’s now; here we are, seconds ticking by. Why not make an investment? In your future. In the trade routes we have only begun to establish here in your region.

Your joy is so beautiful. Log in to Facebook and click ‘Like’ on “Joy Sell.”

Author bio: Robin Wyatt Dunn lives in The Town of the Queen of the Angels, El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles, in Echo Park. He is 33 years old.www.robindunn.com

Wednesday, 26 December 2012

No story from me this Wednesday. Instead I want to say thank you to everyone for reading and contributing to 101 Fiction this year.

We've had six months of fantastic contributor drabbles, beginning with Peter Newman's excellent Dismissed, and ending 2012 with Robin Dunn's Joy this coming Friday. We've already got some great stories lined up for the first few months of 2013 too. I can't wait for you to read them.

Since August there's been a 101 Fiction Tumblr as well, if you like your tiny fiction delivered that way. And I added a little page on drabbles a few weeks ago.

I've been looking back through the past six months' 101s, and it's really difficult to pick favourites without providing links to almost every single piece. I kinda think that's a pretty good sign (even if it's a bit of a cop-out too ;) ). I don't accept all the pieces I'm sent, and I'm really happy with every one I've let through.

Friday, 21 December 2012

We stood in a circle of make-believe stones, waiting for the man we built from mud and twigs to rise. He'd turn us into zombies, replace tooth fairies with shrunken heads. We'd find fingers in gumbo soup. We called it a day. We found him in mirrors. Our dreams turned to rancid butter. We hunted the darkness in packs of scavenger sevens. Telephone wires spilled scratchy voices. We whispered the names of ghost towns to our sickly grandmothers. They crossed themselves and died. When the great storm hit, we locked ourselves in our rooms. We grew bigger than our shadows.

Author bio: Jessie Woods lives in New Jersey. He has been published in Veil, Short-Story.Me and elsewhere.

Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Gerry drifted through space, slowly spinning, one more piece of debris in an expanding cluster. Karl floated nearby.

"Brilliant plan, Karl. Fucking brilliant."

Karl said nothing.

Gerry flexed the stiff joints of his spacesuit, old habit, staving off the muscle atrophy that set in under zero-G. Not that it mattered anymore. No one knew where they were - one of the many joyous hazards of unlicensed prospecting.

Karl had been safely inside the ship, unsuited. Dead now, of course.

Gerry checked his air. Two days.

He wondered which was worse, to die in a flash of terror, or in drawn-out anticipation.

Author bio: Life is, of course, dying in drawn-out anticipation. John Xero is a realistic optimist, he likes to believe the best will happen, but knows it probably won't. ;)

Wednesday, 12 December 2012

There's a place, down in South Carolina, where they farm hatred. Shipped and sold to markets you know nothing about. A trade in things to turn your skin. The secret economies of the world.

Tumours ripple and shimmer as they swell through the children's skin, and when the growths begin to seep they are ready to harvest.

The smell of hate is bilious and sour.

The cattle are bred for purpose, a different species, a line centuries deep, Homo Domesticus. Sometimes they learn words from the workers but they have no rational thoughts - we promise ourselves that, trying to believe.

Friday, 7 December 2012

3 While XxXLordDiabloXxX wrote, "fuck every fuckin thing in this fucked. life love the fucking ACRAXIX metal. BEST! LMAO when the world end 2012, and ALL WHO HAVE EVER LIVE will bow in HELL to blow acraxix 4EVER 3:D Jajaja:3 ACRAXIX RULES!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!♥," it is clear that in the idiom of his day he certainly did not mean to include Acraxix themselves amongst those to be fucked, nor to suggest an eschatology wherein the band would spend eternity engaged in autofellatio, as bitchplzzzz erroneously concluded in his History of YouTube Commentary, the First Century. See drjanepnewton21, 103, see also brown*pwnzor, 233.

Author bio: Steven apologizes for the profanity, but he felt it was integral to the plot. He considers this story a dire warning, of a future internet that need not be. He posts surrealist short fiction at subsequentemissary.tumblr.com.

Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Santos sat in his chamber sipping tea. His own blend - black teas, with the tiniest pinch of gunpowder green - perfect for his final moments.

He felt calm.

He let the paper walls and bamboo matting of the simulation dissolve around him till only the cold metal remained. No more distractions.

He launched. A spear thrown from one tribe at another.

The enemy fleet fired counter-measures. Santos dodged decoys and weaved through clouds of flack. More than a simple smart-missile, he was sentient. He was a hero.

They were all heroes. Hundreds of missiles. Each a Santos seeking death and glory.

Author bio: John Xero makes his own personal blend of tea, it's a little different each time, so he can't guarantee the taste. He's also a big fan of Studio Ghibli films, including the Cat Returns.Hopefully one day people will stop inventing new spears to throw at each other.Blog | Twitter

Friday, 30 November 2012

I stand under the moonlight, my long, sinewy arms outstretched, my hands splayed to catch her silvery rays. She is mine and I am hers: the Lady of the Night. I shiver as she smiles at me and caresses my naked body with cool, tender whispers. From deep within a howl emerges, rising to my lips, and slowly I lift my head to declare my love to the world.

Wednesday, 28 November 2012

Other wizards challenged and fought and ranked each other. They wrestled with fire till infernos were theirs to command, forged armies from ice or reshaped the very land itself. They were so mighty and so proud.

But Shuka stayed silent, and no one knew the power that welled within her. She simply smiled shyly, spoke softly and practiced unseen spells.

Now it was widely known her king employed no mages. Yet any sent against him, mysteriously, came back broken, empty, weeping.

Author bio: John Xero believes there are as many kinds of writers and writing as there are of mages and magic, more even. And that words can be obvious, and they can be subtle, and both can be powerful.blog | twitter

Friday, 23 November 2012

The quarter sat face-up on the schoolyard ground. I squatted beside it, stared into Washington’s eye. I had expected to pick it up and be done with it, but then it spoke to me.

“I’ll make him stop hurting you,” it said.

I took it back inside the school; found Lucas alone in the second floor bathroom. He didn’t anticipate me turning the table, didn’t see me until I’d already pinned his shoulders down with my knees; pried open his mouth.

The newspapers printed his death as an ‘accidental choking’.

The coins in my pocket can barely contain their laughter.

Author bio: Angel Zapata knows money talks. His published and upcoming poetry and fiction can be found at Bewildering Stories, Devilfish Review, The 5-2: Crime Poetry Weekly, Microw, and Mused: Bellaonline Literary Review. Visit him at http://arageofangel.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, 21 November 2012

Padraig was a little goblin of a man, wizened and bitter, always preceded by the tap-tap of his cane. He was old - ancient - but his tongue was still spear-sharp and keen as his eyes. His pale, piercing gaze flickered from person to person, scrutinising, judging their heart and soul.

And in the world beyond this one, there was Padraig, waiting. He would judge folk, and guide them. And sometimes the path wound lazily upwards to light, and sometimes it sloped down, down to lakes of fire.

Author bio: John Xero is not eternal. But that doesn't mean he won't be waiting for you on the other side... Be good.Twitter | Blog

Friday, 16 November 2012

I don't watch the news anymore, the same flickering images of riot shields and snarling police dogs, of explosions in cafés - the lightning strikes of revolution.

The world captured in moments of violence, the voice of civilisation drowned out by the screams of the people as flames lick at their feet.

It started with people marching in the streets, demanding to be heard.

It ended when our governments stopped pretending, when Trafalgar Square became Tiananmen, revisited.

I don't watch the news anymore, pretending to be surprised.

I watch the streets outside and all I see are cobblestones, slick with blood.

Author bio: Chris White is an author living in Brisbane, Australia, which he realises is on the other side of the world. He writes mainly dystopian SciFi and speculative fiction. More of his words can be found (almost) daily at http://chriswhitewrites.wordpress.com

Everyone in the world imagining a SWAG bag: the world in a SWAG bag in everyone's imagining.

Are you imagining it? Good. Bye.

Author bio: John Xero wants one of those sunlight lamps for the dark days ahead (otherwise known as winter). And not because someone's about to steal the sun. But if they do, it definitely wasn't him, no sir.

Friday, 9 November 2012

For days, the Effervescent Magnitude, star cruiser of the indomitable Captain Bartholomew Quasar, had been dead in the water, so to speak, with no systems functional.

Garbed in environmental suits, most of the crew had exhausted their O2 supply and were drifting off to sleep, never to awaken. Quasar punched the intercom on his deluxe-model captain's chair with what strength he still possessed and prepared to exhort all hands one last time-

Suddenly all systems, including life support, came back online. Quasar's console read: IMPROMPTU SURVIVAL TRAINING COMPLETE. WELL DONE!

Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Years ago, me and Lily used to fool around under there. We had this secret spot at the top end, where it was always damp, always dark. Right below the seafood guy. People would be above us, eating their cockles and muscles and shrimps, and Lily would be trembling beneath me and I’d be kissing her hard to keep her from crying out.

But in the damp and the dark, our lust woke something, something old and lascivious. I made it out, but Lily...

They say the pier's haunted; it’s Lily’s moans they hear.

Author bio: John Xero believes the internet will make ghosts of us all... fragments of half-forgotten lives echoing down the years like electronic spectres.Twitter | Blog

Friday, 26 October 2012

There. You see her? Hunched inside a filthy coat? Hear her cough, a deep-down, unhealthy hacking. See that sheen on her like on meat going off.

See her bump into that man, and touch that woman and cough on that child. See that queasy, greasy shine transfer to them. Watch them spread it further and further. In two days, the first of them will die. The rest will follow.

The woman sheds her coat, sheds the body. She keeps the rotten gleam. It suits her.

Disease will spread and cull the weak. This one’s the big one.

Her true masterpiece.

Author bio: C.B. blanchard is your future apocalyptic dictator. She blogs about the apocalypse over at incaseofsurvival.com and can be found talking a load of rubbish on twitter (@gingerkytten)

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

And in that moment, Bran didn't feel the shield straps tight about his arm, the battered helm forced onto his head, or his sword's grip beneath his palm. Everything focussed on one exhalation, one breath, one tiny huuuh of life.

Magatoria, king's champion, a sword in each of his four hands, his spirit anointed by the blood of uncounted humans, leapt at Bran.

Calm became chaos. Blades danced in veils and ribbons of blood. Life became death.

Friday, 19 October 2012

Alamo Jones tipped the gritty, grey dust over the gunnels and let her sink like a cloud. Got it on his fingers. Even swallowed a bit. That was the end of Mercy and the beginning of a new 49ers season – every pert lookin’ groupie knew it. But now his kit is rotting in his locker, and he’s rocking backwards and forwards, watching grey mud totter towards him in fits and starts, reeking of sour seawater. It’s the final pass in the fourth quarter, coming in from a long, long way backfield, and Alamo ain’t gonna get a finger to it.

Author bio: Still suffering flashbacks from hacking 158 words down to 101, Stephen skritches his weird fiction over on Café Shorts.

Friday, 12 October 2012

It´s been some time since she's been like this; relaxed, naked, inviting.

I've been reluctant to adjust her settings. I've checked and nothing seems to be wrong. So I've been waiting. There's some grand pain in that, it's like when I was little and touched my eyes after stroking the cat; the itching was almost unbearable.

Wednesday, 10 October 2012

We never asked the goblins for their protection, always called it oppression.

Bunch of us kids would sneak past their patrols every dark moon, down to the whispering heather. Right dumb, but I was trying to impress a girl. Little Annie MacCready, a true fiery Scot with hair like a flicker o' ginger flame.

The gobs came after us one night, only it wasnae us they were hunting, was the wolf in our midst.

I remember them circling us, hemming us in. I remember their savage cries, their wicked spears. And I remember Annie shifting, twisting, and tearing them apart.

Author bio: John Xero doesn't smoke, doesn't drive, doesn't drink (often). He can't afford to, he buys books and comics by the ton. He also needs more bookshelves.Blog | Twitter

Friday, 28 September 2012

A billion stars spread like marbles across his lap. He flicks one off; it scares the cat and crashes into the radiator. A terrible metal pinging: my heart loosening its hold in my chest.

I ask him why as he fingers another marble.

"Because you were never here when I wanted you," he says.

It's true. And as each marble marks its awful trajectory, I long to fly over them, away from my god, to another. Over a hundred glittering glass stars that mean nothing to me anymore, to a place where I'm alone, and I am my only god.

Author bio: RS lives in Detroit, where they aim for a zombie theme park. She thinks one already exists in her head. Admission is free: http://rsbohn.blogspot.com

Wednesday, 26 September 2012

His bovine huffs and snorts are carried through the labyrinth on fickle drafts, echoing my own laboured breathing. I pause, testing the humid air for his scent. It is there, but it is everywhere, like my own.

Then I see him, lit in shifting orange by the guttering, sputtering torches. His muscular body is tense, poised, and he lowers his horned, craggy, bull’s head to charge. My guts churn with hatred, fear, and boundless anger at the sight of my twin.

Wednesday, 19 September 2012

He lies slumped across the tactical map desk in the war room of his battle barge. Little wooden ships, tanks and soldiers have been scattered to countries far removed from the current conflict. This redeployment has been recorded by sensors built into the oak desk and corresponding orders have been issued.

Quizzical transmissions are coming back from the front lines; the battlefield commanders are understandably concerned.

The assassin has been subdued, however, and the overwritual has been initiated; his memories are being overwritten by Araxis’ last backup.

Long live the immortal Saint Araxis (XII).

Author bio: John Xero's battle barge is his sofa, his orders are issued via Twitter. No one has ever tried to assassinate him.He sometimes blogs, and he once did a book.

Friday, 14 September 2012

People. Everywhere. Swarming, like insects. Like bugs. They got in his way, tripped him up, blocked his path, breathed up all his air and left him bruised and gasping.

So many people. Too many. Unnecessary. Obscene. So many flailing, gross bodies everywhere, filling up all the clean spaces and making him ill, making his head hurt. Too much noise, all those heartbeats, all those pointless, meaningless sounds flapping out of their disgusting wet mouths. No stillness left, anywhere.

It had to stop. He had to find a way. Guns, gas, fire. Purification. And after the screaming, there would be silence.

Friday, 7 September 2012

Malevolence looms. It’s not the weight of the dead, the pull
of unseen eyes, but more like a coiling snake - dangerous and ready to
strike.

I’ve searched through collectables in the store. Breathlessness
near paralyzes me as I dwell upon its source. The stray dog, Red, stays close
to me, seemingly distraught. A bone-framed mirror in the back unnerves me. Stepping
closer, my reflection is no longer visible.

But what must be behind me, for it’s not in front of me, is
Red mutating into a dark, wraith-like form. Initially, I think mirror trick. What
I learn next… terrifies.

Author bio: Erin Cole is a writer of dark, strange fiction. She has work published and forthcoming in Shotgun Honey, Fiction365, Aoife's Kiss, and Every Day Fiction.

Friday, 31 August 2012

opens the door without really thinking and the man standing before him is himself or rather someone exactly his height (he is shorter than average but not by much) wearing his clothes (lumberjack shirt black jeans no shoes) hair color (hue somewhere between ash and dirty blond) and build (lanky really) but where the face should be there is but a canvas of blank skin stretched taut over the skull so he sees his own face reflected in the other like on the surface of deceptive waters and not until then does he remove his thumb from the bell and

by Alex Nyström

Author bio: Occasional fiction writer. A book of short stories was published in 2009 (in Swedish). Twitters @kilotrop.

Wednesday, 29 August 2012

Areius tossed the stripped chicken wing aside and fumbled
for another in the bucket. He was slumped in a threadbare armchair, feet up on
the table, takeaway balanced on his mountainous belly, grease dripping from his
fingers and chin.

He wiped his hands on his filthy vest.

The house’s owners scrabbled on the floor, naked, mewling.
They gnawed at his meagre leftovers.

“Bored!”

He slouched further back. Immortality was such a drag. He’d
explored every facet of foul humanity, every whim, sin, desire and degradation.
Maybe Lucifer would take him back soon, at least it was always warm down there.

Author bio: This is John Xero's home away from home. He normally resides at the Xeroverse. For throwaway, takeaway wisdom try his twitter.

Wednesday, 15 August 2012

Mass immortality had become the bane of Samuel’s life. Science was to blame. No
disease, no old age, no natural death.

What work for a gravedigger when nobody dies?

Sam had a god-given gift. There were so many pretenders who
thought any hole would do, so few who understood the nature of the abyss. There
was a hole left when a person died, and a hole to be made, and the two were not
entirely unrelated.

He took up his shovel; it was a fine tool and it would serve
him twofold now. Not an elegant solution, but needs must.

Author bio: John Xero knows that not any hole will do. And that even the same hole will fit different people in different ways. Twitter hole. Blog hole.

Friday, 10 August 2012

We watch the gate. That is our purpose. For a thousand millennia we have been the guardians of the Night Gate. But there is a disease in our ranks, a slow moving malaise that affects an unknown number of my brothers. Questions are asked by the Dark Inquisitors to try and root out these free thinkers, these renegades. But they are clever, my fellow brothers, they hide in the shadows and whisper in the quiet of the All Night. Sometimes I hear their whispers and unbidden thoughts race through my mind and I also start to wonder about the light.

Friday, 3 August 2012

Posed on the left pant leg of your old jeans that I wear gardening at the weekends, you held your wings stiffly at attention, high above the dark fuzz of your Monarch body. I stood, hose in hand, watering the newly blooming cherry tree. Old echoes of a sigh, a whisper, any sound that might resemble your voice, made me close my eyes against the constant blue sky and purse my lips. I heard only the tunneling of worms deep in the ground as you traced your butterfly kiss across my eyelids, and then wrapped me up in your cocoon.

Wednesday, 1 August 2012

His footsteps follow me through moonlit backstreets, ever gaining, into the woods.

He shoves me against an old oak, tearing at my pretty dress, exposing the swirling, black tattoos beneath. Then the ink crawls and he halts, confused. He yelps as the black writhes up his arms, flowing from my flesh to his.

Later, when he is nothing but pulp and bone, the twitching tendrils slink back beneath my skin. They burn incessantly, day and night.

I take no pleasure, watching that show of slow laceration. I am grateful only that I am allowed to live, while I remain useful.

Wednesday, 11 July 2012

In my dreams his head is a black cube, rotating slowly. It
shimmers and glints with the galaxies that spin within. He has the whole
universe in there, I think.

He is God. He is my father. His tears are starlight.

Somehow I know he is looking at me.

When I wake I remember the last time I saw him. I remember
the birth of a terrible universe, the end of a world. I remember the crimson
galaxies exploding away from each other, the awful nothing at the centre.

My world was his prison. In my dreams, he has escaped.

Author bio: John Xero is the editor at 101 Fiction.

His recently released collection of short and flash fiction, This is the New Plan, is out now for Kindle.

Friday, 6 July 2012

The wind stung his face and chapped his skin. Its icy fingers lifted the snow into a frenzied dance, to fall as a blinding blanket upon the ground. He bent his head against the weather and willed himself towards the shack and refuge. I’ll be safe there for now, he thought. But how long before they come?

He lifted his head when he reached the door then grasped hold of the latch and the door creaked open. He stepped inside, relieved to be out of the cold.

Shadows clung to the walls. In the darkness in a corner, something smiled.

Author bio: Helen is a fiction writer, who writes in several genres which include fantasy, noir, horror and humour. She has written several short stories, flash fictions, poems and completed her first novel, a children’s fantasy fiction.

Wednesday, 4 July 2012

To everyone who read and everyone who commented, thanks for making June a great month.

To the writers, a double thank you.

The first contributor story, Dismissed, is the most viewed story this site has ever had, and rightfully so: it's fantastic.

I'm taking my Wednesday slot to pause and say thanks, and for two more reasons.

One is that my blog, the xeroverse, is two years old, and I'm celebrating by having some guest flash fiction every day this week. I urge you to go on over and check it out, there's some great writing, and some of it by 101 Fiction contributors.

The second is to mention my new book, This is the New Plan. It collects 33 of my best short and flash fictions and is available on Amazon (US & UK).

Friday, 22 June 2012

Sophie, thankyou for finding Astrid for me. She is kind and wise. She reminds me of the summer in Vienna. When we met, she smelled of cardamom. I see her smile when I close my eyes. I plan to invite her to the Imperial Gardens on Valentine's day. We will attend the exhibition. Please book us a table somewhere that emphasises my understated good taste.

Also, please stop calling Astrid now. It is not appropriate. Why did she visit you on Wednesday? I will take you for a software adjustment this weekend.

Sophie? Please pay attention when I instruct you.

Author bio: I make games. Having spent 30-something years exploring fictional worlds, I'm not quite sure I can find my way back.

Wednesday, 20 June 2012

The Nautilus II creaked disturbingly as it sank below the
thousand fathom mark. Jets of salt water sluiced in where the implacable depths
probed its steel armour.

Those gallant, foolish men thought the oceans just another
place to be conquered. They forgot life had been born down there. They pushed
deeper, on their captain’s urging, 'til the submarine's seams burst and the sea
roared in.

The captain unravelled. He unfurled into a mass of thick,
sinuous tentacles and at their centre a hooked beak that plunged relentlessly
into the chests of the drowning crew.

Lifeblood blossomed unseen in dark waters.

Author bio: John Xero is the editor at 101 Fiction.He blogs at the Xeroverse and tweets as @xeroverse

Friday, 15 June 2012

I sat unmoving, hypnotised by the patterns emerging, merging, puddling and overflowing as the drops of rain fell onto the expanse of naked and now blue-black back laid out before me, its slight greasiness delaying momentarily their coalescence. As the granules of orange pigment dissolved and formed wavering runnels down spine, along ribs – ‘Storm at dawn’ perchance? - I was excited and then became bored. I scalpel-slashed it as I would a canvas – and became entranced again at the contrast of the sharply etched lines – slow scarlet leaked then pearled along their length before these too disconnected and floated away.

Friday, 8 June 2012

Years of scurrying around filthy alleys had me believing I was eternally earth-bound until I found her, lying on her back beneath a pox-ridden docker. She saw me first. Her scream gave the punter enough satisfaction to end his laboured pumping. He took flight, throwing a handful of coins between her legs.

“Who the hell are you?”

I smiled.

“I’m you.”

We stared each other out, reflections.

Sunlight pierced the air as my wings erupted. She sighed, and I stole her away from hell’s streets, still warm...

***

We’ll rest awhile, then try again.

Old souls with fresh faces.

Scars healed.

Author bio: A writer of horror and dark fiction, Lily Childs is also the author of the Magenta Shaman urban fantasy series. Find out more on her blog The Feardom or follow her on Twitter: @LilyChilds

Wednesday, 6 June 2012

2033: Purgatory, a prison for the criminally insane, is
built in the asteroid belt.

2190: After the Asmodean uprising, Purgatory is sold off and
renovated into a casino and pleasure hub; among its patrons, many of its former
inmates.

2501: Purgatory sees the last stand of the Abaddon Syndicate
against the Holy State.

2699: Long-deserted, Purgatory is the launch site
for the Apocalypse Missile. The station’s artificial intelligence, S’Tan, now six
hundred and sixty six years old, watches the unquenchable flames of the
expanding sun consume the Earth. S’Tan is still laughing as the fires reach
Purgatory.

Wednesday, 30 May 2012

They nibble at the toes of your consciousness. They are a
part of you. They live beneath the rotting, splintered floorboards of that
cabin you like to call ‘me’.

They gather in the depths of your mind, where your deepest thoughts
flow, places you’re afraid to go. They will take all the goodness they find and
bury it as far as they can behind your fears, your flaws, and your selfishness,
because happiness, hope and love blind them, burn them.

Be at peace and learn, become your own holy warrior. Only
you can defeat your Darklings.

John Xero is the editor at 101 Fiction.

Please come back this Friday 1st June for the first contributor 101, Dismissed, by Peter Newman.

Wednesday, 23 May 2012

The radio wolves hunt in invisible packs. They are prowling,
predatory creatures of air and electromagnetic waves.

That soft, crackling interference on your phone is their
footsteps in fresh snow. That high-pitched whine you hear, sometimes, is their
distant howl.

They circle closer, waiting to attack...

And when they do they will pass through you, paws and claws
and teeth of trickery, nothing but the faintest flicker in the fields that
encircle the Earth. But they will strip the brainwaves from you, rip your soul
right out.

Don’t blame them, they are what they are. Symptoms of the
system. Hungry.

Wednesday, 2 May 2012

Keiji dances in the sand. He plays a game with the waves and
laughs when he loses.

Keiji is thin, skinny, but not too skinny for his age. His sun-bleached
hair is medium length and his skin is a beautiful, glowing bronze; not so
unusual for a boy who spends all his time on the beach. His dark eyes shimmer
like rock pools.

The soft sand sighs beneath his feet. It is white sand, hot
in the late-day sun.

His mother calls to him but he does not go. The
sand whispers his name, but the waves wash it away.

Wednesday, 25 April 2012

Not just your garden-variety, hand-sized, dainty flutter
mites, clinging to the old ways. Billy believed in them all. The impassioned
evangelists, decrying modern modes. The concrete kissing, urban-bred outcasts. The
rainbow-chasing freefolk, dancing on the wind.

He believed in them and he told people about them, and he
got bullied. He got beaten and left to bleed away into the dirt. He nearly
died, that day. But the fairies believed in Billy. They put aside their
differences and they brought him back.

Billy knows now, what he must do. The bullies will believe, as they bleed.

Wednesday, 18 April 2012

You may have seen me mention Lily Childs' Friday Prediction here before. Through her the ancient black tome speaks three words which must be incorporated in a story of less than one hundred. It's a great challenge, a wonderful little community and many of my 101s have germinated there. Sadly the Prediction will be closing in a few weeks, I urge you to hop on over and give it a go while you still can.

This week, three 101s that were all born from the same three words.

Angelic

“I will scratch out your eyes and curdle your blood,” the
cherub screeched from its gravestone perch, clenching a chubby, broken-nailed
fist.

The thing looked like a podgy child about two years old, but
for the disdainful snarl of its lips, its bloodshot eyes, and its wings, with
feathers fading from black to white as if soot-stained.

Unimpressed, John Harley locked eyes with it, “War’s over
Anaeus. Give it up.”

The plague first presented as a raised rash from spine to
shoulders that itched irresistibly. The few survivors were called Cherubim for
their angry, red wings of ripped, scarred skin.

Without thinking, Ellen scratched her back. She flinched as
a scab tore beneath her fingernails. She felt the fresh, wet blood well up.

The only survivors were all carriers. As the death toll rose,
Humanity’s compassion curdled; the Cherubim were locked away.

Ellen waited for the blood to congeal, another feather to
her wings. Then she dressed and strolled calmly into London’s Safezone, a
serene angel of vengeance and death.

-----

Guardian

Orlov hung over London in a web of tubes that pumped curdled
fluids through his transmuted body.

“Sp(ai)der mechs at Marble Arch,” the interface whispered in
his mind.

He saw scuttling machines clambering over the broken
buildings and cracked tarmac of Oxford Street. He heard the New Baker Street
Irregulars panicking.

Orlov remembered being human.

“Launch cherub bombers,” he commanded.

London span into twenty Londons as his consciousness fragmented
between the bombers. The Orlov/ Cherubs swept down from the clouds and
unleashed a hailstorm of micro-explosives that ripped through the sp(ai)der
mechs. The Irregulars cheered.

Wednesday, 4 April 2012

London sprawls across the horizon, taunting us with its
rude, bustling health, drawing us in with coy insinuations, with promises of
revenge. The journey has not been easy but we are finally home.

Whatever the scientists shot us full of is rotting our
insides away. I can feel it in spikes and jabs of bright pain, in a growing,
pervasive ache. We are the walking dead, but we refuse to lie down, our
symphony is not done yet.

We were built to win, and we won. We were trained to fight,
and we have brought the war home with us.

Wednesday, 28 March 2012

His steed is the music he rode in on, the rhythmic, heavy
thunder of hooves.

His dragon is a writhing, tenebrous thing. It has a thousand
eyes that watch him by day and judge him. It has a hundred mouths that flicker
with tongues of barbed comment, and cruel claws which rake him with doubt.

His weapons are forged in the fire of his heart, and here,
‘neath night’s banner, he dances.

His fight with the dragon is eternal, but in
these moments of grace and energy he is winning and he is nothing but happy.

Wednesday, 14 March 2012

Sweat, soot, grime and beating, beating insistence. Oppressive
heat and a fierce orange, bright in a room of darkness. A sparking, clanging
heart.

You. Will. Live.

His thick apron armours against the flicker of fire demons.
He wields a hammer of heavy iron: a brutal, simple weapon of purpose. Corded muscle
lashes out as he beats metal into obedience, into life. Swords and bucklers,
daggers, shields, breastplates, helms and gauntlets.

You. Will. Save.

You. Will. Harm.

The grail is lost. We men, we breaths of thought in cold
metal, are all lost without it.

Wednesday, 22 February 2012

Burnt out, a building becomes an exposed corpse. Blackened
ribs of brick and broken wood. Empty windows like dead eyes. Ghosts of ash drifting,
dissipating on a mournful wind.

The Institute of Advanced Necrological Research had been our
home; the place we were raised, so to speak.

Doctor Frankie told us this day would come, the pitchforks
and torches of yore replaced by shotguns and gasoline. In the ruins of her
office I find the charred painting of her infamous forebear and I am resolved.
We are children of the grave and we will find the monsters that did this.

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

The white noise of the monsoon-born storm transcended anything
Simon had experienced in England, it was deafening and terrible, biblical. The
walls rattled and shook and he feared the chapel would be torn apart.

The locals had warned him of such weather, and the things it
drove above ground: things better left unseen, unimagined.

He shivered and pulled the blanket around himself. Superstitious
nonsense.

He almost missed the rough shouting, half-stolen by the storm.
Then there was a heavy, urgent thumping on the doors. He went to unbar them.
Some company would be good.

Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Billy wedged himself as deep into the narrow crevice as he
could, sweating, shaking. The beast couldn’t get him here. But it tried,
testing his sanctuary with a swipe of paw and extended claw, making his heart
clatter.

Fibrous ropes of drool hung from its jaws and slid from its
yellowing teeth. A cloud of damp breath rolled over him and he gagged at the
smell of rotten meat. He felt wretched, and stupid.

Drink me, the
label had said.

“Just a sip.” Alice had cautioned.

He should have listened. He should have shut Cheshire in the
kitchen, at least.

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

He had trouble, at first; one person’s taboo was another’s
breakfast, fetish, or badge. Then he began imagining religions, generations,
perversions as countries and continents and he discovered psychological
tectonics... thrusting mountains of prejudice, vast spreading oceans of distrust,
disgust.

And once he had the subjects – people, he means – codified: the islands, archipelagos, and peninsulas
of taboo; he saw how simple it would be to foster little warzones of hate and violence,
out there in the real world.

Wednesday, 18 January 2012

A bloodcurdling scream
split the night, sending shivers down his spine.

No, no, no...

It was the curse of horror: all the good screams were taken,
all the shivers and quickening heartbeats had been done. The dark, dank locales
were overpopulated with all manner of cloaked psychos and grizzly monsters. You
couldn’t hide your twisted creation anywhere, all the good spots had gone.

Bright
sunlight dappled the forest floor. Two Red Admirals fluttered past, oblivious in
their chaotic dance. It was a beautiful day. So why couldn't he shake the sense
that something was stalking him, something broken and starved?

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

The child Delilah used to watch them from her window,
playing football in the dust. Later, older, she dared to go out, lean against
the hot, red brick and smile back beguilingly at their catcalls, fluttering
inside.

Older still and she struts for them; she paints her face,
wears a corset, stockings and heels. Each catcall steals a little more. They
press her against the brickwork, cold now beneath the stars, the only fluttering
the Euros they toss in her face.

She used to love the taste of honey, but life ruins every
sweet thing.